


anything can be

by andibeth82



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: And Clint being baby crazy, Multi, Seriously just cute baby fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 17:33:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10667475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: The thing is, Clint’s life has never been defined by children. After all, he shot a bow and arrow for a living, regularly stitched himself up with no anesthetics, and fell down the stairs when he wasn’t drunk. To think he could be any type of model father was laughable.He did think about it, though, in no small part thanks to the fact that Laura made him think about it.





	anything can be

**Author's Note:**

> There is no excuse for this except this is pure fluff and I feel like this OT3 deserves some fluff so here you go.
> 
> anything can happen, child  
> anything can be  
> \- shel silverstein

He thinks about it, more than he wants to admit.

The thing is, Clint’s life has never been defined by children. Growing up in a broken home and not having a steady place to call his own until he was old enough to drink, it was hard for him to think about settling down, much less think about being responsible for a small child who would require his undivided attention, climb on his shoulders, and throw food in his face.

After all, he shot a bow and arrow for a living, regularly stitched himself up with no anesthetics, and fell down the stairs when he _wasn’t_ drunk. To think he could be any type of model father was laughable.

He did think about it, though, in no small part thanks to the fact that Laura made him think about it. Laura, with her soft brown hair and even softer eyes, who smiled and laughed whenever she played with her nieces and nephews or the mailman’s son who was tagging along for the day’s ride. Laura, with her upbringing that didn’t include secret gangs and guns and arrows, who looked at Clint with a child in her arms and made him think of things he’d never cared about before, like soaking her swollen feet during pregnancy or how beautiful and radiant her breasts and face would look once she was showing.

“Remind me again why we’re doing this?”

“Because,” Natasha replies placidly, raising her hand to ring the doorbell. “We said we’d stop by. We owe her.”

“ _Do_ we?”

Natasha gives him a look and he sighs heavily. “Fine, fine. Let’s just do this and get back? I don’t want to spend all day here.”

Natasha gives him a sidelong glance. “What the hell is your problem? You normally love social stuff, especially if you get free food out of it.”

“Nothing’s the problem,” Clint answers, shifting his weight on the doorstep. “Just...family gatherings for other people make me uncomfortable, okay? I mean, have you ever seen me at one of SHIELD’s dumb parties?”

“Come to think of it, no,” Natasha muses. “But then again, we usually skip those parties to fuck in the closet. So.” She winks at him and presses the doorbell. After a moment of barely-discernible sound, the door opens wide.

“I didn’t think you’d make it.”

“Who, us?” Natasha smirks. “You must have forgotten that you threatened us with a week’s worth of Sitwell’s reports if we didn’t show up.”

Maria Hill smiles back, opening the door wider. “Come in. I know it’s a little strange to come all the way out to Westchester like this --”

“I’ll say,” Clint mutters, stepping inside as Maria closes the door behind him.

“But, this is the first time my family has decided to do anything for me to celebrate a milestone, and I didn’t want them to think I didn’t know anyone outside of my boss. Besides, Nick would never come to one of these things, even if I paid him.”

“So that’s how you get two assassins who are theoretically on vacation to show up to your deputy director congratulations party?” Clint asks, crossing his arms.

“Don’t forget who _approved_ your vacation, Barton.” Maria inclines her head towards the living room, where Clint can see a group of people milling around and talking quietly. He takes the hint and walks away, leaving Natasha in the foyer. She could deal with the girl talk; for as much as Natasha prided herself on being stoic and unapproachable, Clint was the one person in the world who knew about her close relationship with Maria Hill, as well as their nights out at poetry slams and dive bars. He suspects that (and her relationship with Laura) are the main reasons behind why she insisted they show up at her house in the middle of classic suburbia.

He wanders through the living room somewhat uncomfortably, smiling at people who look up to take in his presence, and eventually finds the kitchen. He breathes a sigh of relief; a large makeshift bar is set up against the kitchen island and he grabs for a plastic cup, filling it to the brim with whiskey. He downs it quickly and refills it before Natasha can find him and yell at him.

Peeking back out of the kitchen, he finds Natasha still talking with Maria, though the way she’s holding her body suggests they’re talking about something more professional than personal -- not that anyone outside of Clint would probably be able to tell. He wanders into the attached hallway, taking notice of a tightly closed door. If the door is closed, he figures, it’s most likely a safe place to hide out until Natasha has fulfilled enough of her social duties to rescue him.

When he walks into the room, he’s surprised to find that it’s not empty at all. There’s a small baby with short tufts of hair wearing a pink dress, who is standing up and holding onto the bars of her portable crib. When she sees Clint, she shrieks in delight and giggles.

“Oh.” He stares at the baby, and then quickly puts his drink down out of habit. “Hey, there. What are you doing all alone?”

“Hiding until she woke up,” says a voice from behind him. Unprepared and out of his element, he jumps in surprise as Maria’s voice answers his question. “I see you found my niece.”

“Your -- oh, yeah. I guess.” He looks at the baby and can’t help but smile. “She’s cute.”

“Her name is Maggie, and she’s a brat,” Maria corrects, sharing his smile. “But she is cute. You wanna hold her?”

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” Maria says, leaning over to pick her up. “I’ve seen you with children before. I’m not too worried.”

Clint raises an eyebrow. “Normally, I’m calming them down after saving their life. Not exactly the same thing.”

“You’d be surprised. Hey, Maggie, say hi to your new friend.”

Clint barely has time to prepare himself before a plump mess of arms and legs is dropped into his arms, and he tightens his grip out of instinct. Maggie leans her head back to look at Clint and then squirms, looking around with wide eyes.

“She sees the world in a different way,” Clint says after a moment of silence, watching the baby take everything in. “But she can’t articulate anything. I kinda wish I was that innocent again.”

“We all do,” Maria says, her voice shifting into a gentle tone. “I don’t see my family much, but I like being reminded that she exists. That real people are out there, and we’re fighting for them.”

“Clint?”

Clint turns and doesn’t miss the look of surprise in Natasha’s eyes when she notices that he’s holding a baby. Maria shifts her gaze to Natasha, and then shakes her head, walking quickly out of the room.

“Uh...at least I’m not drinking?”

Natasha rolls her eyes as she inclines her head towards the plastic cup Clint’s left on the window ledge. “Honestly, this is worse.”

“What? Me holding a baby?”

“Yes.” Natasha keeps her gaze on Clint as Maggie starts to twist uncomfortably. Clint adjusts his hold, bringing her closer against his chest, and then the baby’s face crumples. In an instant, the room is filled with sorrowful wails.

“Oh, hey...come on, what’s the matter?” Clint moves his arm to wipe some of the tears from the baby’s small cheek. “What’s wrong, little princess?” He starts moving in circles, bouncing her gently in his arms, and then starts a soft off-key rendition of “Blackbird.” By the time he’s finished, Maggie’s cries have stopped, and she’s resting her head on Clint’s sternum. He looks down and brushes his nose against her light hair, nuzzling the top of her scalp.

“If you keep holding her like that, I might ruin these pants.” Natasha’s voice is light and teasing, but when Clint looks up, he notices the red flush around her cheeks.

“You want one?”

“I never said that,” and the response is so abrupt that Clint knows she’s trying to hide her true feelings. He grins and snuggles the baby more.

“Okay. So you just like the way I look holding a baby?”

“Shut up,” Natasha instructs. “I told you, I’m _not_ having sex with you on Maria Hill’s floor.”

“Good, cause I’m not giving up this baby anytime soon,” Clint decides, realizing how comfortable he feels holding Maggie. Even though Natasha had been with him when they stood in the foyer of the house, he’d still felt out of place, his skin crawling and hot. For the first time since arriving at Maria’s, he feels settled and calm.

“She likes you.” Natasha’s closer now, standing right up against him, her breath hot against his neck.

“Yeah?” Clint’s pretty sure that at this moment, nothing else exists except him and Natasha and the baby who is gnawing on the fabric of his shirt.

“Yeah.” Natasha kisses the side of his bicep and he smiles, stroking Maggie’s head.

“So, when was the Black Widow going to show me this particular side of her?”

Natasha shrugs. “Maybe never,” she admits. “You don’t exactly go around holding babies in our line of work.”

Clint snorts quietly. “Yeah, no. I don’t.” He thinks of Laura again, trying to imagine her standing next to him. He imagines her holding Maggie, singing softly, her face happy and her eyes warm, and his brain short-circuits so much that he can’t stop the blood from rushing to his crotch.

“Jesus, Barton,” Natasha hisses, glancing down. “Control yourself. You’re holding a one-year-old.”

Clint swallows, trying to get the image out of his mind as the door opens again.

“By the way, this isn’t SHIELD, so I’d appreciate if you’d stop plotting secret things behind my back that will give me a headache,” Maria says pointedly as she holds out her arms. Clint hands Maggie back somewhat reluctantly, only feeling a little bit of pride when the baby tries to reach for him again.

He follows Natasha out of the room and tries to get the image of Laura and a baby out of his mind, but pretty much fails miserably.

 

***

 

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Clint grunts as he turns the wheel of the car to avoid a pothole; the whole visit had totaled an hour and a half and that was well before the dinner and the cake. “Define ‘not so bad.’”

“Well, I didn’t yell at you for drinking. And you got to hold a really cute baby.”

“Which you liked,” Clint points out.

Natasha pushes hair behind her ear a little shyly. “You did look really cute,” she admits. “I guess I never realized.”

“What, that I could be paternal?”

“That I could be attracted to you when I know how often you snore,” Natasha replies, swatting his arm. “Yes, Clint. I don’t think about it, okay?”

“Well, it’s not like I do, either,” Clint offers. “We don’t exactly have a job that allows us to, you know, think about families.” It’s kind of a lie, he’s been thinking of proposing to Laura but he knows he wouldn’t feel that way with anyone else who randomly walked into his life.

“No,” Natasha says quietly, and her voice sounds sad. “I guess we don’t.”

They both fall silent, until Natasha breaks the heavy mood with an undignified giggle. The sound comes so out of left field that Clint almost swerves the car into another lane.

“ _What_?”

“Just...oh my _god_ , Barton.” She giggle-snorts again. “You are so baby crazy!”

Clint bristles indignantly. “I am not!”

“You _so_ are. You should’ve seen your face when you were holding that baby. Christ, you’re so easy.”

“Shut up,” he mutters, his face turning more shades of red than he knows he has descriptions for. Natasha doesn’t stop laughing, but at least the tension is broken from the previous conversation, and somewhere between the George Washington Bridge and the West Side Highway, she takes his hand and squeezes it gently, wrapping soft fingers around his palm.

“Home sweet home,” Clint mutters as they pull up outside a nondescript apartment complex. He gets out of the car, grabbing his keys and shoving them in the complicated lock.

“It’s about time.” Laura looks up from where she’s been reading, dark hair falling into her face. Her eyes soften when she sees Clint walk in, Natasha trailing behind. “How was it?”

“Fine.” Clint walks over to kiss her. “But it would’ve been better with you there.”

“You could stop hiding me,” Laura suggests, even though Clint knows she’s aware of the rules as well as he is: their relationship stayed out of work situations, even if it was a work situation that seemed safe enough.

“I like having you as my secret,” Clint says as Laura pulls Natasha down onto the bed, abandoning her book. “Nat does too.”

Laura smiles as Natasha starts kissing her neck. “So what was this party really like? Did you get your free food?”

Clint laughs quietly. “Kind of. Give me a sec to wash up and I’ll tell you all about it.”

He leaves Natasha and Laura sitting on the bed and enters the small bathroom that’s located at the other end of the studio. The apartment was one of Natasha’s old boltholes; it wasn’t exactly the most comfortable place for all three of them to play house, but it worked when they were all together and needed to stay off the grid and out of hotels.

He washes his face and hands, trying to stop thinking about how he felt holding Maggie. Whenever he thinks of the baby, all he can think about is Laura, Laura singing to her child and kissing her face and dressing her and reading to her in a rocking chair. His insides burn with hot arousal, sweat breaking out on his skin the same way it had at Maria’s house.

“There was a baby there.” Natasha’s not talking loudly, but Clint can hear her voice pretty clearly through the thin walls. He straightens up and keeps himself perfectly still, as if he’s staking out a target.

“Really?”

“Yes. Maria’s niece. She was really cute.” He can almost see Natasha’s face, the small smile that accompanies her words, her face relaxing into a fond expression as she remembers how he looked holding Maggie. This time, when he closes his eyes, there’s another image -- Natasha standing next to him, soft hands on her arm, Laura sitting on the big swing with her feet up looking beautiful and relaxed.

“Uh.” He exits the bathroom and both Laura and Natasha look up at him, surprised by his abrupt return. Laura’s brow furrows instantly.

“Clint?”

“I want a baby.” He says the words before he can take them back, before he can even really think about them, and watches both of their faces. Natasha’s looking at him with some sort of carefully practiced assassin expression that hides most of her real emotions, while Laura looks both confused and touched.

“You want a baby?”

“Yeah,” he says, exhaling as he says the words. Somehow, saying it out loud makes it easier. “I just…” He trails off, thinking of Maggie, and how it had felt to hold the baby in his arms. “I think I want a baby.”

“With me?” Laura asks slowly and very pointedly. Clint looks at her and then Natasha, and his heart feels like it’s going to burst out of his chest.

“With both of you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @isjustprogress!


End file.
